First fare 2010 competitive analysis and scouting

Competitive Analysis
and Scouting
Henry Gordon

Monday, November 1, 2010

Henry Gordon

• 7 Years of FIRST Experience
• Competitive Analysis and Marketing
Manager for Team 1540
• Won the Colorado Regional
• 2010 Dean’s List Finalist


Overview
• Why Scouting?
• FIRST Tournament Structure
• Alliances
• Eliminations
• Strategy Development
• Scouting Systems
• Advanced Topics
• Q+A

Why Scout?
• One team can make or break an alliance
• Requires relatively low resources
• Can utilize many members
• Long and short term beneﬁts
• Neglected by far too many teams
• Give you a leg up on the competition
• Essential for alliance picking


FIRST Competitions

• Tournament Structure
• Alliances
• Match Structure
• Strategy + Scouting


Tournament Structure
• Various sizes, generally between 40-60
• Autodesk Oregon - 54 Teams
• Teams play 9-10 qualiﬁcation matches
• 3 Days
• Day 1 - Practice
• Day 2 - Compete
• Day 3 - Eliminate
• Judging occur throughout the tournament


Alliances

• What are they?
• “Team of teams”
• 3 teams playing towards one goal
• Strategy becomes essential


Strategy and Scouting
at Events
• Division of Labor
• 2-3 people on interpretation
• 6+ people on data collection
• Adaptable
• USE SHIFTS
• Develop a “pick list” early, update often
• Constantly watch for other team’s strategy
changes

Strategy Development
• Should be in the back of your head at al
times
• The most important part of the victory
• Can elevate or ensure chances of victory
• Day 1
• Week 1
• Match 1

Day 1

• First day of the build season
• Evaluate the game BEFORE you design the
robot
• Hard to go through the build process
without an aim


Analyzing the Game
• Read the rules!
• Examine every possible way to score points
• Examine every defensive strategy
• Understand the ranking system
• Consider possible game strategies
• Find any possible chokeholds

Cost-Beneﬁt
• Difﬁculty v. Reward
• Best task are easy and fruitful
• Rule of absolutes
• -10 points for your opponent = 10 points
for you
• Prioritize!

Week 1
• Watching other opponents is crucial for
evaluating your strategy
• Conﬁrm or deny your initial guesses about
the game
• Watch webcasts and take notes
• Focus on teams that you will meet in
ensuing weeks


Match 1
• Begin your ﬁeld scouting once the robots
hit the ﬁeld
• 8 people in the stands at all times
• 6 scouts, 2 supervisors
• Take notes and feed them to your drive
team
• Watch for changes in strategy as well as
“Sleepers”

Scouting Systems

• Different for all teams
• Essential
• Find the system that works for you


The Basics

• Subjective Scouting
• Objective Scouting
• Data Gathering
• Data Interpretation
• Alliance Selection


Subjective Scouting
• Begins in the Pits
• Evaluate every team
• Start on Thursday
• Take pictures of every robot
• Team # + Any interesting features
• Things to observe
• Functions
• Type of Drivetrain
• # of wheels, traction/wheel type, # of motors
• Build Quality
• Ask Questions!

Subjective Scouting
• In the stands
• Build comments into objective scoring
• Record comments
• Track observations that data cannot
provide
• General strategy and tendencies
• Driver skill

Objective Scouting
• Watch every match
• Track
• Match score
• Points scored by each team
• Scoring attempts
• Penalties
• Autonomous v. Tele-op
• Starting position
• Any other statistic pertinent to the challenge

•

Objective Scouting

• Teams of 3-6 people
• Rotate people throughout the day
• Forced scouting makes data unreliable
• Make it fun.


Data Collection
• Various input methods
• Wii Controllers
• Pen and Paper
• Other solutions
• Build into a database
• Very efﬁcient way of doing think
• Very easy to generate stats
• Requires laptops
• Difﬁculty synchronizing


Data Interpretation
• At least two people on interpretation
• Generate reports on each team over the
course of the tournament
• Databases make this easy
• Develop a ranking formula
• Ax +By+Cz etc...
• Collate objective data with subjective
data

Alliances
• Starting on thursday
• Observe robots in the pit
• Continues friday
• Watch for outstanding play
• Friday night
• Make a draft pick list
• Review your data (subjective and objective
• Establish what you need in a partner
• Rank teams from 1-28
• Make notes of teams to observe on Saturday

Alliances

• On Saturday
• Observe potential teams
• Beware of admirers!
• Finalize your pick list
• Prepare your representative with notes,
clipboards etc.


Advanced Topics

• OPR and Matrix Math
• Using Excel to your advantage
• Colorado Example


OPR and CCWM

• Used for calculations without the need for
scouting
• Uses matrices


Final Thoughts

• Do what is best for your team
• Prioritize scouting, it’s the easiest way to
improve your performance
• Understand the game and how its played
• Understand your competition


Useful Links
• FIRST
• usﬁrst.org
• The Blue Alliance
• thebluealliance.net
• Chief Delphi
• chiefdelphi.com
• WPI Thinktank
• thinktank.wpi.edu
• Team 1114 - Simbotics
• team1114.com

Questions?

• gordonh@catlin.edu
• Email me - I love this stuff


First fare 2010 competitive analysis and scouting

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